New Articles: Housing Policy Debate

New Articles: 33:6 Housing Policy Debate (2023).

Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, Alexander Hermann & Sophia Wedeen, “The Rent Eats First”: Rental Housing Unaffordability in the United States, 33:6 Housing Pol. Debate 1272 (Mar. 2022).

Matthew M. Brooks, Measuring America’s Affordability Problem: Comparing Alternative Measurements of Affordable Housing, 33:6 Housing Pol. Debate 1293 (Jan. 2022).

Jovanna Rosen, Victoria Ciudad-Real, Sean Angst & Gary Painter, Rental Affordability, Coping Strategies, and Impacts in Diverse Immigrant Communities, 33:6 Housing Pol. Debate 1313 (Feb. 2022).

Michael Manville, Paavo Monkkonen, Michael C. Lens & Richard Green, Renter Nonpayment and Landlord Response: Evidence From Covid-19, 33:6 Housing Pol. Debate 1333 (July 2022).

Eric Seymour, Corporate Landlords and Pandemic and Prepandemic Evictions in Las Vegas, 33:6 Housing Pol. Debate 1368 (Sept. 2022).

Emily A. Benfer, Robert Koehler, Alyx Mark, Valerie Nazzaro, Anne Kat Alexander, Peter Hepburn, Danya E. Keene & Matthew Desmond, COVID-19 Housing Policy: State and Federal Eviction Moratoria and Supportive Measures in the United States During the Pandemic, 33:6 Housing Pol. Debate 1390 (June 2022).

Vincent Fusaro, Rebekah Levine Coley & Naoka Carey, Shelter From the Storm: State Eviction Moratoria, Implementation Context, and Eviction Filings During the First Two Years of the COVID-19 Pandemic, 33:6 Housing Pol. Debate 1415 (June 2023).

AJ Golio, Grace Daniels, Russell Moran, Y. Frank Southall & Tricia Lamoza, Eviction Court Outcomes and Access to Procedural Knowledge: Evidence From a Tenant-Focused Intervention in New Orleans, 33:6 Housing Pol. Debate 1443 (Aug. 2022).

Henry Gomory, Douglas S. Massey, James R. Hendrickson & Matthew Desmond, The Racially Disparate Influence of Filing Fees on Eviction Rates, 33:6 Housing Pol. Debate 1463 (May 2023).

Wonyoung So, Which Information Matters? Measuring Landlord Assessment of Tenant Screening Reports, 33:6 Housing Pol. Debate 1484 (Aug. 2022).

Chris Hess, Rebecca J. Walter, Ian Kennedy, Arthur Acolin, Alex Ramiller & Kyle Crowder, Segmented Information, Segregated Outcomes: Housing Affordability and Neighborhood Representation on a Voucher-Focused Online Housing Platform and Three Mainstream Alternatives, 33:6 Housing Pol. Debate 1511 (Nov. 2022).

Nathaniel Decker, The Prevalence, Profitability, and Risks of Milking Among Low-End Small Rental Properties, 33:6 Housing Pol. Debate 1536 (May 2023).

Katherine Levine Einstein, Joseph T. Ornstein & Maxwell Palmer, Who Represents the Renters?, 33:6 Housing Pol. Debate 1554 (Sept. 2022).

New Report: How Much Would Poverty Decrease in Each State If Every Eligible Person Received Safety Net Benefits?

Linda Giannarelli, Sarah Minton, Laura Wheaton, Sarah Knowles, and Ilham Dehry, How Much Would Poverty Decrease in Each State If Every Eligible Person Received Safety Net Benefits?, URBAN Institute 2023. Overview Below.

Social safety net programs provide critical support to individuals and families with low incomes. However, limits on program funding, a lack of awareness of benefits, stigma, and other barriers mean many people don’t receive the assistance they’re eligible for.

But what if everyone who qualified for these programs actually received assistance?

In these fact sheets, we examine how much poverty would decrease—overall, by age, and by race and ethnicity—and how much benefits would increase if all people eligible for safety net programs received the full benefits they qualify for in each of the 50 states and DC.

To test the effects of this hypothetical scenario, we use the Analysis of Transfers, Taxes, and Income Security (ATTIS) microsimulation model. We apply ATTIS to detailed household data from the 2018 American Community Survey that we have projected to represent 2022 (because 2022 data were not available). We include the following seven means-tested safety net programs in our analysis: Supplemental Security Income (SSI); the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF); child care subsidies supported by the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF); the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP); and public and subsidized housing.

We test the scenario using real-world rules, without assuming any changes in federal or state eligibility rules or benefit levels. See our accompanying report for more details about our methodology.

Nationally, the total amount of benefits for which families are eligible across all seven programs is twice what families currently receive. We find that full funding for these programs and full participation in them would have two major impacts:

The total amount of benefits people receive would double. If every program were a fully funded entitlement (meaning all eligible people could receive benefits) and all eligible people participated, aggregate annual benefits would increase from $220 to $447 billion.
Poverty would decrease by almost one-third overall and by more than 40 percent for children. The overall poverty rate, as measured with the Supplemental Poverty Measure, would decrease from 14.7 to 10.1 percent (31 percent). The child poverty rate would decrease from 15.2 to 8.5 percent (44 percent).

New Article: Equalizing Remediation

Chinonso Anozie, Equalizing Remediation, 23 Wis. L. Rev. 3 (2023). Abstract Below.

Environmental harm remediation occurs far less than it should in minority and low-income communities. One in six Americans live within three miles of a designated toxic waste or contaminated site, which causes a variety of health hazards. Frequently, these sites are located within minority or low-income communities. Multinational corporations and even governmental agencies sometimes intentionally or negligently exploit loopholes to escape responsibility, especially when poor or low-income communities are involved. Lead agencies focused on remediation efforts tend to have fewer resources in poorer areas. By contrast, in affluent communities, offending companies commence remediation efforts much more quickly. Such disparate remediation efforts contravene the principle of environmental justice.

Delayed or inadequate environmental remediation exacerbates harm across the country and it disproportionately harms numerous underprivileged U.S. communities. Often, environmental justice scholars and advocates focus on equal enforcement of the current environmental protection laws. I argue that current environmental protection laws leave room for unequal remediation, and equalizing remediation does not lie in the strict enforcement of the current environmental protection laws particularly when similarly situated communities are involved.

This Article initiates the conversation towards equalizing remediation by highlighting failures to equalize environmental harm remediation. It advocates for new policies, which better ensure no community is shortchanged in such activities based on race, geographical location, or income level. It argues for various statutory amendments and distant regulations capable of better promoting equalized remediation of environmental harms and thereby advancing environmental justice.

New Article: Criministrative Law: Data-Collection, Surveillance, and the Individualization Project in Us Child Welfare Law

Yael Cohen-Rimer, Criministrative Law: Data-Collection, Surveillance, and the Individualization Project in Us Child Welfare Law, Colum. J. Gender L. (forthcoming). Abstract Below.

This article joins the growing discussion in the critical legal scholarship on the incarcerating welfare state and the relationship between care and punishment in the United States. It adds a further dimension by nuancing the legal definition of Child Welfare Law and exposing its organizing concepts. It claims that one pivotal characteristic of the incarcerating or otherwise punitive welfare state is the administrative law it uses, which is framed, worded, and operated as criminal law. The author explores how ‘criministrative law,’ as she terms it, attains benefits for the state while intentionally limiting even further the protections afforded to its most vulnerable recipients. Beyond deterrence and punishment, it seeks to remove these citizens from society. Since race and poverty are inseparable, this operation of Criministrative law is discussed in relation to both.

Textual and legal analyses of the Child Protection chapter within the Massachusetts general law show the ‘dance’ between the administrative and the criminal that is rooted in the ‘individual choice’ fixation. This, coupled with an individualization mindset that promotes the fragmentation of the family unit, forms the bedrock of the punitive American welfare state. Among the harms caused by this mindset that is enshrined in Criministrative law, this article identifies that (i) practically, it presents a hurdle for legal practitioners and other professionals seeking to defend anyone caught up in this system; and (ii) it creates the effect of ‘legal gaslighting’ by deliberately conflating the benign, efficient, objective, and professional traits of administrative law with the legally violent actions of the punitive state. Simultaneously, it prevents the use of legal tools that are inscribed in the criminal legal framework to ensure the protection of the accused and incarcerated and provide them with agency and voice. Criministrative law is hence the law of the closely-watched-but-not-seen. To address this, the author proposes a novel construction of the legal treatment of children at risk of harm caused by poverty—one that does not inflict Criministrative law on parents and thus harm the very children it is meant to protect.

New Article: Baseline for Distributional Analysis

Ari D. Glogower, Baseline for Distributional Analysis, 48 BYU L. Rev. 6 (2023). Abstract Below.

Studies of income inequality and the distributive effects of taxes and government spending drive debates over progressive fiscal reform and economic justice. These distributional studies provide vital information on inequality in market outcomes and how government policies mitigate these disparities.

Despite its critical importance, however, distributional analysis encounters inevitable and familiar limitations. These studies face practical challenges in measuring income and the distributional impacts of government policies. Distributional analysis also faces inherent complications in seeking to distinguish between the effects of the market and the government.

Even if distributional analysis could precisely measure income and the effects of government policies, these studies would still embed assumptions as to which measures of inequality matter. For example, the measure of market income used in distributional studies offers one possible measure of inequality. This measure, however, does not compare taxpayers’ disposable income available for discretionary consumption or savings, and therefore does not reflect accurately differences in household spending ability.

No methodology can offer an objectively correct way to perform distributive analysis. Because of their limitations, however, current distributional studies can understate inequality of household budgets. They can also overstate the distributive effects of government benefits to lower-income individuals and understate benefits at the top of the distribution.

This Article introduces a new approach which yields a different assessment of income inequality and the effects of government policies. This method first deducts costs individuals incur for basic needs from the baseline of market income to construct what this Article terms a “basic needs baseline.” The method then assesses the distributive effects of explicit taxes and government spending from this new baseline. In effect, this methodology treats expenses for basic needs as implicit taxes or burdens from government inaction, when the government does not provide for them, rather than as affirmative benefits when the government does provide for them.

A basic needs baseline does not offer a “solution” to the measurement challenges and inherent limitations in distributional analysis. It does, however, offers a different—and valuable—measure of economic inequality and the effects of government policies. This method more accurately reflects the reality of differences in household budgets and redresses the imbalances in distributional analysis resulting from its unavoidable limitations.

New Article: Power and Pay Secrecy

Michael M Oswalt, Jake Rosenfeld, and Patrick Denice, Power and Pay Secrecy, 99 Ind. L. J. (forthcoming 2023). Abstract Below.

The legal momentum toward pay transparency is widespread and fast-moving. Since 2010, over a dozen states have passed laws prohibiting employers from telling workers they may not talk about wages. Proponents see these and related transparency laws as crucial steps to combat sex- and race-based pay discrimination in the workplace. But do state anti-secrecy laws actually reduce pay secrecy in the first place? That basic question remains largely unexplored. This Article fills the gap through a unique national survey that includes information about pay discussion rules and a range of other relevant employer and employee characteristics across the fifty states.

We find that just under half of all workers in states that have prohibited pay secrecy rules still confront one at work. Surprisingly, this is only slightly less than the fraction of workers who are subject to pay secrecy rules in states without a law against them. Moreover, employers seem to react to state laws not by removing the expectation that workers should remain silent but by making their pay secrecy rules more informal — though no less illegal. Our analyses also show that state variations in the types and severities of employer penalties for violating the law have little overall impact on the prevalence or formality of pay secrecy rules, with the notable exception of California and its especially comprehensive remedies. But even in California, 4 in 10 workers remain subject to an illegal pay secrecy policy.

Though employment law enforcement is notoriously poor, pay secrecy rules seem uniquely durable — and state pay secrecy bans uniquely futile. In considering why, we document the old and new arguments used to understand secrecy’s persistence. But even in combination these factors are not adequately explanatory. We contend instead that the dominant driver is employer power, in two forms. The first, coercive power, is widely documented and understood. The second, known as legitimating power, is not. We find strong evidence for this latter form and suggest it is the key to explaining the pervasiveness of illegal pay secrecy rules. The insight helps critique the newest efforts to legislate transparency, like mandated pay ranges in job postings. Most importantly, a legitimate power lens clarifies the best paths towards nationwide pay transparency in the future.

New Article: Poverty Penalties as Human Rights Problems

Jean Galbraith, Latifa AlMarri, Lisha Bhati, Rheem Brooks, Zachary Green, Margo Hu, and Noor Irshaidat, Poverty Penalties as Human Rights Problems, 117 Am. J. Int’l L. 397 (2023). Abstract Below.

Fines and other financial sanctions are frequently imposed by criminal justice systems around the world. Yet they also raise grave concerns about economic discrimination. Unless they are perfectly scaled to defendants’ financial circumstances, they will penalize poor persons far more than rich ones—and poor defendants’ inability to pay can lead to further penalties like imprisonment or additional financial sanctions. These “poverty penalties” have received attention in domestic jurisdictions but are understudied as a global phenomenon. This Article takes up this issue and makes three contributions. First, it demonstrates that poverty penalties are prevalent in criminal justice systems around the world. Second, it shows how poverty penalties came to be overlooked in international human rights law and describes how this is starting to change. Third, the Article makes the normative case for addressing poverty penalties within human rights law and offers suggestions for how this can be achieved.

News Coverage: Fighting for Anthony: The Struggle to Save Portland – New York Times

Source New York Times: Fighting for Anthony: The Struggle to Save Portland.

News Coverage: Homeless Camps Are Being Cleared in California. What Happens Next? – New York Times

Source New York Times: Homeless Camps Are Being Cleared in California. What Happens Next?

New Article: Race and the New School Milk Requirements

New Article: Noah Smith-Drelich, Race and the New School Milk Requirements, Online Article, Cal. L. Rev., May 2023.